Maybe the person in the OP made an agreement with the relative to give their kidney, and they would get a "cash donation" in exchange. Technically not a sale. You know how these things work amongst acquaintances. *wink*

Indeed, who knows about any sort of under-the-table dealings? I'm sure stranger things have happened. While directed donations are allowable, at least in the blood transfusion field they are generally not encouraged. This is to avoid situations where family members or friends are unduly influenced by something other than altruism (e.g. money, family pressure) to donate their blood and not only incurring the risks thereof (not so much for blood donation, but can be quite considerable for organs), but possibly endangering the recipient as well. A hypothetical (but not unrealistic) situation for the latter would be, say, Little Johnny gets leukemia and will need transfusions during chemo, and so someone organizes the family to donate units so Johnny won't have to get a "stranger's" blood. Uncle Bob, though, has been living a second life unbeknownst to everyone else involving anonymous sex with multiple partners and other such high-risk behavior. Uncle Bob might refuse to donate to protect Johnny from HIV, HCV or whatever he might have, but risks the ire of the rest of his family for not pitching in to poor Johnny's fight. Bob also doesn't want his blood tested, possibly then testing positive for HIV or whatever, getting indefinitely deferred from ever donating again, and then having the rest of his family wonder aloud just why exactly is Bob no longer allowed to give blood. Or, Bob can't resist the pressure, and decides to donate anyway. However, even with modern testing, the transmissible infection risk, while indeed extremely low, is not zero-- the tests aren't fool-proof, particularly for very early infections. Even if his blood tests negative, it may just be in the early "window period" of an infection, and in fact have transmissible virus in it. This is why blood donation in the U.S. (and elsewhere too, most likely) is preceded by a whole litany of questions for the potential donor to screen out any potentially risky donors, and a donor is always given the chance to notify the donor center at any time to instruct them not to use his/her blood (self-deferral) even after collection and no reason need be given. A whole battery of tests is also performed on the donated units to eliminate those with infectious risk. The U.S. blood supply is very safe, but even so, should never be considered entirely harmless. Transfusions should be given only when they're really needed.

Summer forum cleaning! To keep the forums neat and tidy we only keep 6 months worth of threads since its June 6, 2013 [6/6/13] we will keep only keep posts open from January 6, 2013 [1/6/13]. Please feel free to recreate any thread closed, as long as someone else didn't open another similar one before you.